Catching our Breath
by J.Turenne
Summary: Syd is in trouble... Who comes to the rescue? (Not Vaughn, yet.) The story of a dysfunctional family...


Catching Our Breath  
  
A/N- I tried Irina fic earlier in the week, and I am quite sure that I've managed to get myself addicted. All of the Alias characters are multi- faceted, but there is such incredible depth to Irina's character that makes her AMAZING to write. Even if I'm not much good at it. Anyway, I have been writing this nonstop all yesterday and today, including during math class. I sort of started with a smidgen of the scene, the middle, and filled in the blanks. And here it finally is. By the way, the title will show up in a later chapter (probably in a conversation between Syd and Irina or Jack). Have you all noticed my author's notes lengthening?  
  
Reviews-As usual-more than anything, reviews light up my life. A real review not only keeps me from killing those around me, it turns me into a completely different (and better) person. Please, please, please review!!!  
  
  
  
Jack Bristow stalked into the cell block, waiting impatiently as the gates inched up before him, heading towards Irina's cell. He was not looking forward to this. His meetings with her had been hitting closer and closer to home, especially since her comment that they were still technically married. But, he had to admit, it was he who had brought the subject up in their next conversation. The whole thought cut him deeply; the thought that their promises to love, and honor, and cherish had not been voided scared him more than a little.  
  
But he was not here for small talk today. He was here on behalf of his daughter, and he would do anything to keep her out of harms way. Even if it meant facing..her..again.  
  
She watched him as he strode into her cell. It was obvious that he didn't want to be there, which ruled out the possibility of a discussion of the past. She was almost sorry; those were the best years of either of their lives and the memories, though she knew they seemed fake to him, were precious to her.  
  
He stopped, standing directly in front of her, quite close but separated by the glass. Gathering his strength for the upcoming battle, he spoke. "Sydney is on her way to Nice, on a last minute mission from Sloane. She would have come herself, but there was no time."  
  
It was beginning to look like this conversation would stay completely professional. She sighed inwardly. She needed human companionship, even if it was from a man who, to most of the world, seemed to despise her. Ah, well. Sydney would come to talk to her after the mission, and a talk with her daughter was worth the wait. Best to play on Jack's level. For now.  
  
"What was she sent for?"  
  
"Sark told Sloane about a device hidden in the basement of an Abbey there. Supposedly it's a weapon of some kind, but Sark didn't know, or at least he hadn't told Sloane."  
  
A weapon.in Nice? Irina racked her brain. She didn't know of anything important being kept in Nice. Unless..no, he couldn't mean that.  
  
Could he?  
  
Irina gasped. "Jack, how is she supposed to be retrieving this weapon?"  
  
He was confused. "It wasn't supposed to be that big, just the size of a paperweight. She was just supposed to infiltrate the vault where it's stored, take it, and get out."  
  
"You HAVE to stop her, IMMEDIATELY!" She had turned white with fear. His eyes widened. "What do you mean? What is this thing?"  
  
"It's a bomb, EXTREMELY powerful. But it is programmed to only respond to the skin of one person who handles it. The surface is hypersensitive. If ANYTHING solid other than the skin of that person touches it, it will detonate."  
  
"How do they keep it working? It had to be resting on something."  
  
She shook her head. "It's kept suspended the same way the red ball in the Circumference is."  
  
Suddenly it clicked. "The Circumference.. wait, YOUR people designed this?" "Designed, no. Built, yes. It was a Rimbaldi design."  
  
Jack ran his fingers through his hair. "Sark is trying to kill her." He looked straight into her eyes. "Why?"  
  
"Jack, you have to believe me when I say that I have no idea. I would never, EVER instruct him, or anybody, to hurt Sydney."  
  
His eyebrows quirked in disbelief. "But it was no big deal for you to shoot her."  
  
Irina was surprised; she thought that Sydney would have told Jack already what her motives had been. Or maybe she had, and he was just playing dumb to see if her story would check out. "Jack, Cuvee was watching when I went to meet Sydney. I could either get us both killed, or hurt her in the least hindering way I could think of and make sure that she was in a situation that either you or I could have escaped from. It was the only thing that I could come up with, and, you have to admit, it worked."  
  
He wasn't sure that he believed her, but didn't have time to argue. "That's not important right now. I have to find a way to contact Sydney."  
  
"What do you mean, find a way? Doesn't she have a comm?"  
  
He shook his head. "Only an SD-6 one. This was supposed to be a simple mission, and her only countermission is to photograph the thing before she brings it back to them."  
  
Suddenly it occurred to her. "But, more than that, you have no source for this information. SD-6 doesn't know. How could she possibly have? Jack, either she or her cover are going to end up dead!"  
  
He hadn't realized it before, but he knew that she was right. "There is one other option."  
  
"Which is?"  
  
"I'll have to get to her before she gets to it. I'll tell her to let herself get captured by the authorities. Then the CIA can bail her out, and she can tell SD-6 that she escaped from wherever they were holding her."  
  
She was impressed. "Then the only problem is getting to her."  
  
"Without SD-6 finding out." He realized that they were working as a team to solve this, just as in Kashmir. He hated to admit it, but their brains worked well together.  
  
She bit her lip. "Jack, I know you won't want to hear this, but that means that you can't be the one to make contact."  
  
He knew that she was right, and so he let her go on. "Furthermore, the person who meets her will have to pull her into a dark alleyway or something somewhere to tell her all this. That means that it has to be someone she trusts, or at least can identify quickly, or they'll be out cold in a matter of seconds."  
  
She took a breath, giving him a chance to interrupt if he so chose, but he stayed silent. "Additionally, the person will have to be able to hold their own against her in those first few seconds, or else they won't even get her into that dark alleyway."  
  
Jack was beginning to get impatient. "You're obviously trying to get at something."  
  
"I'm going as fast as I can. Now, the three people within the CIA that Sydney would instantly recognize, and recognize AS CIA, are you, Mr. Vaughn and myself." This was the point that he was most likely to dispute, but time was short and he let her go on.  
  
"Now, we've already ruled you out, because you are too closely tied to SD-6 and if Dixon were to notice you'd be in BIG trouble. From what I have seen of Mr. Vaughn, he wouldn't be able to hold his own in a struggle against her for long enough." She looked up at him, letting him draw the next conclusion himself.  
  
"Which leaves only you." She nodded.  
  
"ABSOLUTELY not." There was NO way he was letting this woman drag his daughter anywhere.  
  
She had expected him to protest. "Jack, be reasonable! What part of my logic is lacking? Where did I miscalculate? Jack, this is the only way!"  
  
He laughed at her, a cold, empty laugh. "There is never only one way. I'll get her out of there somehow. Thank you for the information." He turned to go.  
  
Irina's mind was racing. Her daughter's life was in serious danger, she was the best person to help, and she was trapped. She HAD to get out.  
  
"Jack, let me go to help, I can't just stay here when Sydney is in such danger and there is something that I can do about it."  
  
His voice held no emotion; she had made him suffer helplessly before, now it was her turn. "That's not your choice to make. I have to get going if I'm going to catch her." He began to walk out of her cell.  
  
"Jack!" Her voice was hollow, desperate. "PLEASE let me go with you!!" He didn't turn, and, doing the only thing that she knew would get him to respond, she spat at him in an almost inhuman snarl, "She's my daughter too, dammit!"  
  
He did respond, swinging back to look her in the eyes. "NO, she is NOT your daughter. You lost any right you ever had to call her that the moment you abandoned her." The 'and me' that he hadn't said hung heavy in the air for a moment. But she wasn't about to back down now. Sydney needed her, and if she had to play it down to her very last card, she would.  
  
"I am asking you to let me help you save OUR daughter's life, which is exactly what I was doing then." Her eyes burned into his.  
  
"What the hell are you talking about?" He knew that he didn't have time for this, but he had to know. He had wanted so desperately and for so long to believe that she hadn't really betrayed him. He needed to know how she would justify herself, even if he wouldn't believe it.  
  
"Did it ever occur to you that I didn't want to go back to the KGB? That maybe, just maybe, it wasn't my choice? That maybe it was the hardest thing I ever had to do?" She had needed to tell this to someone for so long. But Jack deserved to hear it first, and now she would finally get it out of her.  
  
He was stunned. He had not seen her so open since that moment in the prison when she had told him and Sydney that she had been a prisoner there. He still wasn't ready to believe her unconditionally yet, but he would listen.  
  
"Go on." She was surprised that he hadn't snapped at her, or at least, that he hadn't snapped something cruel. She wished that time were not so important; she would have to tell this as quickly as possible if the gesture were to have the intended effect of saving her daughter's life.  
  
"They contacted me nearly a month before I left. I tried to tell them that I liked being Laura Bristow, that I was happier than I had ever been, but I had never been listened to, and there was no reason to start now. So they decided to use.. alternative measures to get me back." His face was as blank as he could keep it, but his brain was working overtime. Did she just say that she had been..happy? As Laura? With Sydney? With him?!  
  
She studied his face, knew that he was struggling to convince himself not to believe her. "Do you remember that, a few days before I left, Sydney stayed for a few hours with Mrs. Johnson down the street?"  
  
"Yes.." Where was this going?  
  
"She wasn't with Mrs. Johnson." He saw the same fear and hurt that he felt reflected in her eyes.  
  
"What?!"  
  
She gulped slightly before continuing, her voice raw and eyes wide with fear, even in memory. "THEY had her."  
  
There was nothing for him to say. His Sydney, his angel..even then, she was being put into danger because of her parents and their jobs.  
  
Her voice came out in a rush, the things she had never been able to say before fighting their way out. "I walked in and I saw them.. and they had her, my little Sydney, so small..and she was unconscious, and he had a gun to her head." She didn't clarify who 'he' was, and he didn't bother to interrupt. "He said, "You WILL obey your orders, or the next time you find her the bullets WON'T still be in the gun." And he pushed her back at me, and I grabbed her and ran, and ran, and I kept thinking, how could I do this to her? What kind of mother was I? I couldn't put her in danger, I couldn't risk letting them get her, letting them hurt her." She paused for the first time, blinking back her tears to focus on Jack's face. "So I did what they wanted me to. I know that I hurt you, hurt you both, but we could all have been hurt much worse." One more pause, and a deep inhalation. "I left because I deeply loved you both. And I.." her voice quavered, "I still do. I know that you don't want to trust me now, but all I want is to keep her safe, I swear, Jack." She was going to continue, but looked up into his face and decided against it.  
  
His expressionless mask was gone, replaced by a painfully obvious layer of hurt and fear and wonder and, for the first time in some years, almost hidden beneath all of his other emotions, understanding. He looked up into her eyes, for once completely open to him, noting her tearstained cheeks and feeling perilously close to tears himself. "Jack.." she choked on his name, and he held up a hand to stop her. When his voice came, it was low and soft and sounded foreign to his ears.  
  
"I'll talk to Kendall. I should be able to convince him to let you go." His voice wasn't at all strange to her, however. It was the voice she remembered, the kinder, softer, and so much more whole Jack she had known.  
  
"Thank you," she whispered, and one last lonely tear left its trail down her cheek as he turned away from her and walked out of her cell.  
  
  
  
A/N-Tell me what you think! I will update this as soon as I know where I want it to go. 


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